The garage can be a valuable resource in terms of keeping our lives together. However, very often, the garage becomes a storage unit for all the miscellany of yesteryear. Here are just a few tips for keeping your garage neater, less cramped, and more useful:

1. Take everything out. It’s much easier to make a plan for organization when you know how much you have. Once you pull out the contents of your garage onto your driveway, you’ll probably realize that you have a lot more stuff than you thought you did.
2. Assess what you have. Is anything broken or totally useless? Chuck it, give it to a friend or a family member, or have a garage sale. De-cluttering is 75% of organization.
3. Make distinct piles of your items with labels such as “tools,” “auto supplies,” “emergency items,” “bikes,” and “toys.”
4. Measure your garage to determine the size of the furnishings you’ll need to make everything work. Knowing the extent of your space may also lead you to do some additional de-cluttering.
5. Determine what you’ll need for each zone. Consider purchasing a workbench, shelves, cabinets, or rolling shelves for storage. If you’ll be hanging items directly to a corkboard or the ceiling, you’ll need to pick up some heavy-duty hooks.
6. Use bike storage. Bikes, poorly arranged, can take up a lot space. Consider purchasing a bike rack or hanging your bikes on the wall.
7. Hang up your ladder. The ladder can take up a lot of space, so hang it on the ceiling from some heavy duty hooks or hang it from the rafters.
8. Label everything. This is the last, important step. You put so much work into this good organization: help yourself out by leaving behind some reminders of how the organization works and why you chose to do it the way you did.

For more tips on all things to do with garages, contact the Utah garage door experts!

Keeping your garage door locked can go a long ways toward preventing a burglary. A burglar who was recently taken into custody says that “it's common practice for burglars… to try their luck with garage doors, as so many people leave them unlocked. Open garages, it seems, are… a bit of an easy touch.”

It’s quite common for burglars to go from home to home, simply opening unlocked garages, slipping in, and disappearing into the night with hundreds of dollars in valuables and the homeowners none the wiser. And leaving your garage door unlocked could have even more dangerous consequences. An Iowa man, telling about a recent burglary attempt on his home, shares the following harrowing story:

Mike Franzen was awakened by his wife at one a.m. when the doorbell rang. Franzen went to his interior garage door to see who it was, and opened the door to see a man in a black ski mask pointing a shotgun at him. Franzen slammed the door shut but the burglar fired the shotgun. The door mostly absorbed the blast, but Franzen took a couple of BBs to the hand. Franzen and his wife spent the next couple of hours hiding out while the burglar ran away.

Luckily, the story ended without casualties, but could have been avoided had the garage door been locked, preventing the burglar from getting to the interior garage door at all.

Make sure your Utah garage door is equipped with an automatic opener and is locked every night to prevent any tragedies from occurring in your home.

Your garage door is the only thing separating your cars, four-wheelers, boats, and other valuables from the corrosive elements of the world outside. What’s more, your garage door constitutes up to two-thirds of your home’s front, meaning it plays an important part in the aesthetic of your home. Making sure your garage door is well maintained is important not only to your possessions but also to your appearance. Follow these three steps to keep your garage door from falling to pieces:

1. Use the right cleaners. Clean your door regularly with a mild detergent and a soft car brush. It’s best to wash your door each time you wash your car. The more regularly you clean your door, the better it will look and the longer it will last.
2. Easy on the salt. Most of us need to salt our driveways in the winter. To the extent possible, avoid salting the driveway immediately next to the garage door. The less salt that gets on your door, the longer it will last.
3. Have a regular lube, tune, and inspection. Regular lubrication ensures that your door will continue to open and close as it is meant to. A careful tune-up from A+ Garage Doors also helps to ensure that the door’s rollers never come off the track. We’ll make sure that your door is in ship-shape for a very long time.

For more garage door maintenance and repair help or to have a new door installed in your home, contact the Utah garage door experts!

As winter approaches, it’s time for your toys to go into hibernation, too. That includes your car, truck, boat, four-wheelers, and any other heavy machinery you kept in the driveway all summer. Why? Otherwise, corrosive salt on the driveway will get into all the little nooks and crannies of your automobile. Additionally, scraping snow off your car every morning before heading to work or school can cause irreparable damage to the paint. Furthermore, would you rather drive a car to work that has frozen in the driveaway all night or get into a car that’s been kept nice and toasty in the garage all night?

Before you stow away your toys for the winter, you’ll need to make sure your garage is fully equipped to keep your car safe and happy all season long. Make sure you have the following features in place:

1. A Garage Door Opener. If you’re opening your door by hand, you present a serious risk to your possessions. With an opener, you not only save yourself the energy of opening by hand, you also get the ability to lock the door, keeping your goods in and the bad guys out.
2. Composition. While wooden, vinyl, and fiberglass doors will keep the weather out, steel doors provide the best insulation no matter the conditions.
3. Garage floor covers. Not only do garage floor covers make for a more comfortable space, they also keep dripping antifreeze from staining or contaminating your concrete floor in the winter.

Make sure that all of your vehicles are ready to go when warm weather returns in the spring. For more info on winterizing your garage or to have a new door installed, contact the Utah garage door experts.

Most of us are fairly careful about maintaining our homes and automobiles; but without careful, periodic attention to the garage, both can be for naught. Your garage door is the most prominent feature of your home – it accounts for up to two-thirds of what people see when they look at your house. Let it fall into unsightly disrepair at your own peril! Garage door maintenance is extremely easy. Here are just a few steps to take to make sure your garage door looks good and continues doing its job:

Every six months, you should

1. Remove dirt and grime from the windows with regular glass cleaner.
2. Wipe down the surface of the door using household detergent and water.

Once per year, you should

1. Do a thorough inspection. Here are a few important things to check for:
• Are there any rollers with bent shafts, worn-out bearings, or broken wheels?
• Are any of the hinges bent or loose?
• Are there any missing or loose bolts or screws? If so, tighten them up.
• Are the extension spring-lift cables running properly in the pulleys? Is there any rubbing taking place?
2. Take a few minutes and lubricate all of the door’s moving parts.

If you run into any hiccoughs along the way, contact your Utah garage door repair experts!